A blog by Hamish MacPherson considering politics from the perspective of choreography

Performance

Here’s some writing by Sarah Rubridge from 1989 about the implications of violent repetitious choreography. I think it’s still relevant 25 years on. The images were selected by me.

“The vocabulary employed by many artists [whose work address political issues] is based on the conventions of physical theatre which has its own political agenda. The movement is often violent and frequently self-abusive, their actions genuinely risky and replete with repressed (and expressed) anger.

Open House is a short speech and movement score for 10-60 people. Using verbatim text from the national parliament it makes a game of the metaphors of political debates. If political speech is used to choreograph citizens, can that state-wide choreography be applied to a small crowd? And how might that crowd start to take control?